


Inconsequential Details

by violet_storms



Series: femslash february 2021 [3]
Category: The West Wing
Genre: F/F, Falling In Love, Feelings Realization, Femslash February
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 01:20:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29305629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violet_storms/pseuds/violet_storms
Summary: For a very long time, Donna thinks Amy is just being polite.
Relationships: Amy Gardner/Donna Moss
Series: femslash february 2021 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2144880
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12





	Inconsequential Details

For a very long time, you think Amy is just being polite.

There is no other reason, really, why she should stop by your desk after each and every appointment she has with Josh. She doesn’t know you. You aren’t friends. You aren’t anything alike. So it’s politeness, just politeness, that drives her to your desk to say hello.

Right?

Right.

You’re very good at casual conversation. Josh has mocked you for this before, but you take pride in it, always have. So it makes sense that Amy’s visits to your desk keep getting longer and longer—it’s just because you’re great at small talk. You doubt she gets a lot of great small talk doing what she does.

(Doesn’t get any from Josh, that’s for sure.)

And it makes sense, too, that she compliments your clothes, and remembers things you told her the last time you two spoke. She’s a woman. Women do these things, Josh would say. Men don’t. That’s just the way it works.

Right?

Right.

So it’s probably because you’re a woman, then, that you begin to notice all these little things about her. The way she twists her mouth when she’s about to smile. The sound her shoes make clicking against the tiled floors. The way she always drums her fingers against your desk just before she pulls away, in one smooth movement, and it reminds you of something Josh would do until it doesn’t, not at all.

You’re used to comparing people to Josh. It’s what you do. You’ve worked for him for how many years now? You’ve been in love with him for how much of that time? (Too long, too much.) Cliff Calley to Josh. Sam to Josh. Amy to Josh.

Until one day it’s Josh to Amy, and that throws everything out of balance.

Josh is a good man, you know this. He’s a good man, and a smart one, and a dedicated, determined one, and those are all ingredients to something really wonderful, something that’s made you wait, stall, all these years. But Amy—Amy is different.

Amy is clever, and sharp, and bold. She talks to you in a way that makes you want to listen instead of interrupt, tilt your head and take in every word. “Why don’t you ever listen to me like that?” Josh asks. “I think it would do you some good.” His voice is playful but his eyes are sincere. He really does want to know.

And the truth is that you aren’t sure. The things he says are worth saying, but the things Amy says, they’re worth hearing as well. That’s not the same.

Amy, she listens to you too. She listens and quirks her mouth up and later recalls all the most inconsequential details of a story or an event, the things you pretend you didn’t even remember, although you did and you’re thrilled she does, too. She’s got this talent for knowing what’s important to you without you having to say it. Your coffee order, an author you told her you liked, your favorite color, a joke you laughed at months ago.

“Do you have some kind of list?” you ask her once. “ ‘Things Donna Likes?’ It’s the only rational explanation I can think of.”

“You’re selling yourself short,” she says. “It’s at least a file. You like a lot of things.”

Josh would have said that ironically, in that way he does that’s halting and hovering on the edge of mocking. And it’s not that Amy says it sincerely, kindly, because her voice is wry, too, and her eyebrows raised, but you aren’t the expense of her joke. It’s your joke, too. It’s both of you, knowing each other, being known.

For a long, long, time, you think Amy is just being polite. What other reason could she have for smiling at you every time she sees you, and bringing you little things like the extra paper clips you said you needed or a donut from a nearby bakery because you hate the ones in the mess hall? No other reason. No other reason at all, because you’re Donna Moss and you work for and are in love with Josh Lyman, and she’s Amy Gardner, and she’s so far out of your orbit you may as well be on different planets.

Right?

Right…

And then she and Josh aren’t seeing each other anymore, so she isn’t coming by the office anymore, and you miss her. You are surprised to find how much you miss her. You miss her voice and the way she gets intense about things, so similar to the way Josh does, because they’re so similar, too similar, for them to ever work out together. You and her, though, you aren’t anything alike. And it worked.

You miss the way it worked.

So you cry about it to Ginger and Carol and they smooth your hair and say things in low voices, even though they aren’t sure why you’re crying, and neither are you until you say it. “It’s just that she won’t come by my desk anymore,” you sniffle, and Bonnie throws a look at you.

“Not like you two ever stuck to the desk, though, did you?”

And it hits you, all at once, because she’s right. It wasn’t just Amy stopping by your desk and buying you things and smiling at you. It was walking with her around the building “because you needed to stretch your legs” and snacking with her in the mess “because she hadn’t eaten all day” and calling her on the phone “because you’d forgotten something you were supposed to tell Josh,” and when you think of that, a switch is flipped, and all your excuses come crashing down around you. Because she was never just being polite.

And you weren’t either.

You aren’t brave. At least, you’ve never thought of yourself as brave. But maybe you are, at least a little bit, because calling her after that has to be the scariest thing you’ve ever done, and you do it anyway. The phone rings in your ear and you nearly hang up but don’t, and she answers, “Amy Gardner.”

“Hi Amy, it’s Donnatella Moss.”

“Hi, Donna, I know who you are,” she says. “What’s up?”

“Can I see you?”

“Can you see me, why?” she says, and your heart drops, but her breath catches and she says, “Not that I don’t want to see you, which I do, I was just wondering—”

“I’m in love with you, I think.”

“Oh,” she says. “Okay.”

Then, “Do you want my address?”

After—after everything which is so much of her and not enough of her at all (maybe you’ll never be able to get enough of her, you think, and you’re okay with that)—you stare at her ceiling and try to talk yourself out of your happiness, because it’s what you’ve always done. This can’t last, you think. This is too good to be true. This is going to flame out, burn up, crash back to the earth.

Right?

Amy rolls over in the bed and presses her face into your shoulder, and your lips curl into a smile.

And you think, _wrong._

**Author's Note:**

> Don't get me wrong, I love Josh/Donna and everything, it just bothers me the way he talks to her sometimes. So I wrote this.
> 
>   
>    
> 


End file.
